Elon Musk Wins National Space Society Robert A. Heinlein Award (Washington DC – February 18, 2014) The National Space Society takes great pleasure in announcing that its 2014 Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award has been won by acclaimed space entrepreneur Elon Musk, the Chief Designer and CTO of SpaceX.

In the last decade, SpaceX, under the leadership of Elon Musk, has been moving directly toward accomplishing goals that many of us in NSS think are of utmost importance, such as forcing a drastic reduction in launch costs by doing the very hard task which no one else in the world has been willing and able to tackle: working to create a family of commercially successful and reusable rocket boosters and reusable spacecraft.

The National Space Society’s prestigious Robert A Heinlein Memorial Award will be presented to Elon Musk at the 2014 International Space Development Conference (ISDC). The conference will be held at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. The ISDC will run from May 14-18, 2014. The imaginations of our visionaries of the last 100 years will not be fulfilled until affordable, large scale and high mass operations can take place in Earth orbit and beyond. SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft is reusable and SpaceX is making great progress towards a reusable rocket, the key development that would make such operations possible.

Hawthorne-based rocket company SpaceX was a big step closer to competing for lucrative U.S. Air Force launches after the military branchs review of one of the companys launches.

The Space and Missile Systems Center, the Air Forces El Segundo-based purchasing arm for rocket launches, said late Tuesday that a SpaceX launch of a Falcon 9 v1.1 on Sept. 29 of last year will count toward the companys certification to carry Air Force payloads.

The company officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. must perform at least three successful flights of a common launch vehicle as part of the certification process.

SpaceX must also pass a number of technical reviews, audits and independent verification, as well as validation of the rockets ground systems and manufacturing processes, the Air Force said.

As part of the certification process, the SMC is also assessing two other SpaceX launches, on Dec. 3 of last year and Jan. 6 of this year.

The release of the final environmental impact statement by the Federal Aviation Administration that would help determine whether SpaceX could build a rocket launch pad in Cameron County has been pushed back again.

Officials said the final environmental assessment will be released to the public in April. The final report was scheduled to be released at the end of winter and had previously been expected in late 2013.

FAA spokesman Hank Price said the preliminary report is being reviewed by the cooperating agencies. After the draft has been finalized, it will be published to the public by April, it is hoped, Price said.

'Hurry up and wait' is typical for government here. If you don't get your papers in on time it's a national disaster, but they can take long as they please, and odds are they've screwed it up royally. One of the many reasons we don't trust government as far as we could throw a dead horse.

The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee had a hearing today with the CEO's of SpaceX and ULA. During the hearing Mr. Gass, of ULA, was asked about the infrastructure costs to the EELV program and that being part of the reason that ULA costs were higher. I did a little research and by my count, ULA has not launched more than 6 commercial satellites since Boeing and Lockheed Martin combined to form ULA in 2006. How is it that it cannot be seen by others that the US Gov't is the only entity keeping ULA alive and yet Mr. Gass can sit there and say they are competitive in the commercial environment?

Because ULA sees NASA & USAF sales as "commercial," even though everyone else knows better. There is also that the govt. has to give ULA a flat out $1 Billion subsidy over and above launch costs to "guarantee" the service. Moving launches to SpaceX would save the US a lot more than that $1 Billion subsidy.

Also, be prepared for a series of news items involving SpaceX. Can't say more yet.

Because ULA sees NASA & USAF sales as "commercial," even though everyone else knows better. There is also that the govt. has to give ULA a flat out $1 Billion subsidy over and above launch costs to "guarantee" the service. Moving launches to SpaceX would save the US a lot more than that $1 Billion subsidy.

Also, be prepared for a series of news items involving SpaceX. Can't say more yet.